Do you speak my language?

I was born in the UK, my first language is English, I am a native speaker.  I've tried learning many languages in my time, the ones I had the most success with were Irish, Spanish, and French.  The only one of the three I stuck with and still practice today is Spanish.  What I find fascinating about language is what it takes to become fluent.  There are many different definitions of what that actually is, and unfortunately there's no standard definition so it comes down to confidence as to whether you actually want to make a claim to fluency.

You can argue that certain language certifications or levels are required to be considered fluent but I would argue that I was fluent in English before I ever went to school as most native speakers would also be.  To me in that respect I would define fluency simply as your ability to have a conversation that flows in a language without having to stop and try and translate words.  It's important to note here that having to stop simply because you don't know a word isn't in and of itself a sign you're not fluent in that language, just that your level within it is akin to that of a child still learning to expand their vocabulary in order to increase their articulation.

What I find fascinating about the concept of fluency however is that languages can't be defined succinctly.  Whilst dictionaries attempt to do this, a language is something that is inherently unstable.  That instability exists around the edges of the language, not at its core.  It's not easy to define where one language ends and another begins because languages are constantly evolving.  New words are added and old words are forgotten.  You can infer which language a word belongs to by the cultural origins and the environment in which it was first used but even at that words evolve over time and even if a word originates within one language it isn't deemed to belong solely to that language.  The English language is littered with words from many others, words that originate in Greek for example are quite prevalent within the field of mathematics and the healthcare industry.  Those words are still considered to be part of the English language.

What I find interesting about this inability to define a language definitively, is that even within the parts of the language that are used most commonly, there are "branches" that in essence form "trees" within the language itself where clusters of words and terms are almost exclusively used in tandem with a specific industry or cultural movement.  That leads to the bizarre situations where two people, fluent in English can have a conversation that a third person also fluent in English can't even follow.  I'm not talking about jargon - although that in itself is another complication.  I'm talking simply about words that are used specifically within industries.

If you have no background in finance or economics and you watch something like Bloomberg, you can get lost very quickly.  If you know nothing about cars and watch a show aimed at people who do, likewise you will get lost quite quickly.  Even when the use of jargon and technical terms are sparing, being able to understand all of the words that are spoken doesn't mean you will understand what is being said - that is the remarkable thing about language.  We tend to infer that you understand a language first, then what it conveys, yet this whole argument demonstrates the counter, you have to understand what is being conveyed first, before you understand the language.  It's for this reason when I explore podcasts and series that teach languages online I start by seeking out what I already know rather than something that is completely new to me.